Galactic Civilizations III and Crusade Updated to Version 2.5

Today Galactic Civilizations III and its expansion, Crusade, have received the major v2.5 update. With this update come improvements to AI, UI, balance, and performance.

Some of these improvements you will see in GalCiv3 actually come from in Crusade being brought into the original game, but naturally not with the expansion's special features. Some UI changes, like the summary tab, come from Crusade, along with how galactic resources are accumulated, and even the performance improvement for AI. Now the AI system is run on a core-neutral engine in both the base game and expansion. Crusade's improvements to the Diplomacy system, including the very useful trade bar, have been brought to the base game too.

If you look at the release notes there are two that might be of particular interest to current GalCiv3 and Crusade players. Saves from earlier versions of the game are not supported, so if you want to continue playing them you will need to select "galcivclassic – v2.33 Release" under the Betas tab of the game's Steam properties. For those with Crusade but want to return to the base game without having to remove the files, you can add -DisableDLC "Crusade" as a launch flag. The release notes are fairly long but might be worth looking through to see what other handy enhancements have come, and what Crusade enhancements are now in the base game.

I want to share this quote from the CEO of Stardock, Brad Wardell, concerning his view of the Crusade expansion and the future of it and the base game:

I view Crusade as practically a sequel to the base game, not just an expansion. We really don't want to get into the business of charging money for AI and engine upgrades, so we'll continue to improve both games in order to achieve the best possible results.